The

sport Sport pertains to any form of competitive physical activity or game that aims to use, maintain, or improve physical ability and skills while providing enjoyment to participants and, in some cases, entertainment to spectators. Sports can, ...

association football Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

in the island of Montserrat is run by the

Montserrat Football Association The Montserrat Football Association is the governing body of football in the British Overseas Territory of Montserrat. It is in charge of the Montserrat national football team and is also responsible for the league in Montserrat, the Montserrat ...

. The association administers the national football team, as well as the

national football league The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...

. They are one of the few remaining FIFA members that have never had proven women's football. Financial reports for 2020 mention expenditures for women's football initiatives and domestic competition though, so it is possible that limited activity has been starting. The sport is thought to have been introduced in the late 1960's/early 1970's with the league forming in 1974, but actual historical evidence is limited. The eruption of the

Soufrière Hills volcano Soufrière may refer to: __NOTOC__ Places Towns and villages *Soufrière, Dominica, a village on the southwest coast of Dominica in the Caribbean *Petit Soufrière, Dominica, a village on the east coast of Dominica *Soufrière, Saint Lucia, a town ...

interrupted league football in 1995, with the subsquent emigration of a significant proportion of the populace and establishment of an

exclusion zone An exclusion zone is a territorial division established for various, case-specific purposes. Per the United States Department of Defense, an exclusion zone is a territory where an authority prohibits specific activities in a specific geographic ...

over much of the island removing any chance of consistent football. Since then the league has been sporadic and small in scale, with the

national team A national sports team (commonly known as a national team or a national side) is a team that represents a nation, rather than a particular club or region, in an international sport. The term is most commonly associated with team sports, for exa ...

primarily relying on players in their overseas disapora. Clubs have participated twice in the

Caribbean Club Championship The Caribbean Club Championship, also known as the CFU Club Championship or CFU Club Champions' Cup, was an annual international football competition held amongst association football clubs that are members of the Caribbean Football Union (CFU). T ...

, in 2004 and

2017 File:2017 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The War Against ISIS at the Battle of Mosul (2016-2017); aftermath of the Manchester Arena bombing; The Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017 ("Great American Eclipse"); North Korea tests a s ...

, but never to date in the

Caribbean Club Shield The Caribbean Club Shield, also known as the CFU Club Shield, was an annual Caribbean football competition for clubs that were members of the Caribbean Football Union (CFU). It was a second-tier competition to the Caribbean Club Championship, and ...

. Both Ideal SC in 2004 and Police FC in 2017 lost their matches heavily. The

would debut in 1991, in the

Caribbean Cup The Caribbean Cup was the championship tournament for national association football teams that are members of the Caribbean Football Union. The first competition, established by Shell and run by former England Cricket fast bowler Fred Rumsey, wa ...

, though they wouldn't form the modern FA until 1994, where they would join the Caribbean Football Union and later, in 1996, FIFA. Matches would remain relatively sporadic, with the eurptions preventing them from playing for 4 years and they quickly found themselves towards the bottom of the FIFA rankings. Thsi led to their participation in

The Other Final ''The Other Final'' is a 2003 documentary film, directed by of Dutch communications agency KesselsKramer, about a football match between Bhutan and Montserrat, then the two lowest-ranked teams in the FIFA World Rankings. The game was played i ...

, a match organised to mirror the 2002 World Cup final but between the two lowest ranked countries: Montserrat and

Bhutan Bhutan (; dz, འབྲུག་ཡུལ་, Druk Yul ), officially the Kingdom of Bhutan,), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is situated in the Eastern Himalayas, between China in the north and India in the south. A mountainou ...

. Losing 4-0, they would not win an official match until 2012, when they'd defeat the

British Virgin Islands ) , anthem = "God Save the King" , song_type = Territorial song , song = " Oh, Beautiful Virgin Islands" , image_map = File:British Virgin Islands on the globe (Americas centered).svg , map_caption = , mapsize = 290px , image_map2 = Bri ...

2012 Caribbean Championship qualification A total of 25 teams entered the qualification process for the 2012 Caribbean Cup, competing for a total of 8 spots in the final tournament. Jamaica national football team, Jamaica, as the holders, and Antigua and Barbuda, as hosts, qualified autom ...

. Strong across Nations League qualification, they'd qualify for the

2019–20 CONCACAF Nations League B The 2019–20 CONCACAF Nations League B was the second division of the 2019–20 edition of the CONCACAF Nations League, the inaugural season of the international football competition involving the men's national teams of the 41 member associatio ...

but would fail to reach the 2019 Gold Cup. As of October 2022 they would be ranked 179th in the world.

League system

References

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